Interview of Cardinal Brandmüller on "Amoris laetitia": "Exceptions Are a Dead End"

Vatican City (kath.net/KNA) Many commentators believe that after the Pope's Letter on Marriage and Family "Amoris laetitia," there was a possible admission of remarried divorcees to communion in individual cases. In the interview with the Katholischen Nachrichten-Agentur (KNA), Cardinal Walter Brandmüller (87) explained how he thinks this is a misinterpretation, for example, how the footnote number  351 is read and that  "Amoris laetitia" can be  a "wake-up call" for the Catholic Church in Germany.

KNA: your Eminence, you were described by the newspaper "Bild" as a critic of the post-synodal letter "Amoris laetitia" of Pope Francis. What do you not like about this document on marriage and family?

Brandmüller: On that I must disagree. This is a misrepresentation of the facts. I have not yet publicly expressed myself after the publication of the letter. I have published an aid to interpreting the expected document only before publication. So to talk about a criticism is also incorrect. 

KNA: In your guide to interpretation you speak against any exceptions for the admission of those divorced and remarried in individual cases. But many commentators have understood "Amoris laetitia" exactly as this. Are your fears justified then? 

Brandmüller: Yes, some interpretations in fact go wrong. To allow exceptions in individual cases is a dead end. I made ​​that clear in my aid to interpretation. What is fundamentally impossible for reasons of faith, it is also in the individual case. This was prior to the appearance of "Amoris laetitia" as well as afterwards. It is Catholic doctrine that a validly concluded and consummated marriage can not be dissolved by any power on earth -  certainly not by the Church. Jesus says: "What God has joined together, man must not separate." And: Whoever divorces his wife from the marriage and marries another, commits adultery against her. Even a woman commits adultery when she divorces her husband and marries another." So now the question: Can I really receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ, that is, Himself, being aware what He said and yet disregarding  it?

KNA: Pope Francis himself answered the question in the affirmative, if through his writing, where "specific new possibilities" for the divorced and remarried have been created.  What are these then?

 Brandmüller: There are parts of the letter "Amoris Laetitia" that are very beautiful and leading spiritually  into the depths and has more significant things to offer than answers to the marginal problems of the so-called  remarried divorcees.  Anyone who thinks there is an opportunity to receive absolution and communion  in "Amoris laetitia",  they would have to seek it  in the footnote 351 in Chapter 8. There is talk that such believers in the Church could be provided the means to the Sacraments, in certain cases. This was interpreted in fact in the said sense. 

But: the nature of specific cases which might be, remains unsaid. Also, it must be asked whether a footnote of about three lines is sufficient to overthrow the entire teachings of popes and Councils on this subject. Certainly not! Rather  this footnote should be interpreted even more strictly in accordance with the constant teaching of the Church. The Church can not contradict itself. 

KNA: What does this writing mean for the Catholic Church in Germany?

Brandmüller "Amoris laetitia" should really serve as a wake up call in Germany. It is now at last insists not only upon focusing in the marriage preparation on sociology and psychology, but to convey the profound teaching of the Church on the sanctity and beauty of authentic marriage and helps young people  to  succeed in marriage and a hand at building a family.

The Regensburg Bishop, Rudolf Voderholzer recently made this insightfully important point: especially  the pastorally unilateral acts should cease that negate the Church's credibility and bring about disagreement and confusion.  "Amoris laetitia" could be the new start to an ecclesial pastoral care of marriage, if one choses to align pastoral practice clearly with the doctrine of the faith. Everything else would fail from its own inner untruthfulness. (C) 2016 CBA Catholic News Agency. All rights reserved. Photo: (c) kath.net

Link...

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Pope: For an Answer on "Amoris Laetitiae" Read Cardinal Schönborn's Synopsis

Francis expressed himself in another "flying press conference" not only on "Amoris laetitiae" but also on the Syrian refugee families who came along with him, sealing off of Europe and the meeting with Bernie Sanders

 Vatican City (kath.net/KAP) Pope Francis appealed to journalists that when reporting on his  Apostolic Letter "Amoris laetitita" they should also read the synopsis that Cardinal Christoph Schönborn had given at the press conference at the Vatican.  When asked by a journalist at the "flying press conference" on the flight from Lesbos to Rome on Saturday afternoon, if the document on the subject of marriage and family opened "new opportunities for the divorced and remarried," the Pope said "I could already say yes, but that would be too short a response. If you read the introduction by Cardinal Schönborn, who is a great theologian, to the text, then you have the answer," said Francis, [Apparently, Pope Francis said "I can say yes.  Period," in the Italian, "Io posso dire sì. Punto.."] according to Vatican Radio. Besides questions about "Amoris laetitiae" the journalists wanted to talk about the Arab refugees traveling in the Airbus - three Syrian families - the sealing off of Europe and the meeting with Bernie Sanders.

The Pope said that he was still moved in the wake of his visit to the refugee camp Moria in Lesbos: He had "to cry" about the encounters he experienced. Francis showed reporters pictures the children had painted and presented to him: "What the kids want is peace? Because they are suffering." On one of the pictures a weeping sun can be seen: "If even the sun were able to cry," said Francis, "then it would do us some good to shed. I would also invite the arms dealers to spend a day there in the camp." That would be "healing" for them.

In terms of the twelve traveling Syrian refugees who are Muslims, the pope insisted that it was "a purely humanitarian matter" and not to connect "any political speculation." The idea had come up a week ago with some of his colleagues in the Vatican, "and I accepted this immediately." He had "seen that it was the Holy Spirit who was speaking." The action was coordinated with the Greek and Italian authorities.

Francis quoted Mother Teresa: "It may be that this is just a drop in the sea, but the sea is not the same because of these drops." When selecting the refugees to take to Rome, he had "not made a choice between Christians and Muslims," ​​Francis said. "These three families had their papers in order and could get it. There were two Christian families on the list, but their papers were not in order. So no privilege." The twelve refugees he wished to take care of in the Vatican, were "all God's children".

On European refugee policy the Pope said: "I understand the people who feel a certain fear. I understand that we have great responsibility in receiving a great responsibility, and one of the aspects is how to integrate these people." He also reiterated that he considered walls as "no solution" and that bridges lead further. "We need to build bridges, but intelligently, with dialogue and integration." Europe must "urgently address their admissions policy, integration, growth, jobs and economic reforms."

All these points are "bridges" that reach into the future. "Europe must now return to find the ability to integrate, which it always had." That some "people born and raised in Europe," the "sons or grandsons of migrants", had committed the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels had, which shows in this view, "that there has been no integration policy."

On his decision to meet with the democratic US -Präsidentschaftskandidaten Bernie Sanders, Francis said that he met and greeted Sanders in the morning when he had left the residence of Santa Mart where he lives on an entire floor. The Marxist Pro-Abortion Sanders came to address Congress on the social encyclical "Centesimus Annus" in Rome.

"It was a simple greeting, nothign more. That's called manners, not meddling in politics. If someone thinks that a welcome is the same as mixing in politics, I recommend him a psychiatrist," said Francis word for word.

Another journalist asked about "Amoris laetitia," namely, why Francis had been hiding the subject of sacraments for the divorced and remarried in a footnote? The Pope explained that he had done so, "because it was already in Evangelii Gaudium," the programmatic Apostolic Letter of 2013. By "One of the last Popes" - Benedict XVI. was meant - "Has, as he once spoke of the council, there have actually been two of the Second Vatican Council, one of the Council of the media," said Francis about the totally different weights of certain issues.

So it will not probably not be registered, "that the the Communion is not the main problem of the family and Church." "We have a declining birth rate, at which one can only cry, lack of jobs and salaries, so Mom and Dad both have to work, and the children grow up alone. These are the big problems," Francis said.

Edit: and as usual, you're welcome LSNs.

"In This Respect There is an Explosive Power in Them" -- Amoris Laetitia and Schönborn's "Disobedience"

Baldisseri and Schönborn

"Farewell to the Magisterium"

(Vienna) The Catholic theologian and director of the left-liberal, and management of the  Austrian daily newspaper. Der Standard, Wolfgang Bergmann, identified the key to Amoris Laetitia yesterday in the ORF broadcast "Praxis - Religion and Society" (ORF-focus "Mother Earth"). He explains this by that which does not exist in the document, namely, the "Farewell to the Magisterium" and therefore to normative standards.

Bergmann is considered to be a "Church insider." He formerly headed the public relations of the Austrian Caritas and was communications director of the Archdiocese of Vienna. He was, until 1999. a close collaborator of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna.

Amoris Laetitia was presented by Cardinal Schönborn not only on behalf of the Pope to the world, but has also contributed his handwriting in some cases. The first section of the controversial eighth chapter begins with the "gradualness", a keyword that  Schönborn coined in the first Synod of Bishops, 2014. Accordingly, there are no irregular situations in relationships between two people, but only a gradation in the realization of the marriage "ideal". It's a concept that has already been criticized at the time criticized as a relativistic dissolution of marriage sacrament, but it still found its way into an official papal document.

"Roman theology has come to the end"

According to Bergmann there has only been "very minimal progress" by Amoris Laetitia. However, the positive side is a "farewell to the Magisterium" initiated by Pope Francis.  The pope has written, "preaching, lyrically, citing writers, he is pedagogical-psychological [Some might say pedantic and deliberately insulting.], but theological only a few places."  But there is a reason, says Bergmann: "The Roman theology has come to the end."

Pope Francis had "opened the door for the sacraments" to public adulterers, Bergmann speaks of divorced and remarried, though in "only in two footnotes," and thus in a "hidden form".

Then Bergmann reported on the "Vienna Praxis." Cardinal Schönborn had been engaged in this praxis "for 15 years" even as he presented Amoris Laetitia at the press conference and thus even refuted  the reputation he's had so far - albeit with a decreasing tendency - the attributed Image of a "Conservative". [Nobody ever believed that once they got to know what he really was.]

"Schönborn has lived in disobedience here"

In the Archdiocese of Vienna, it had long been a practice given by Cardinal Schönborn, says Bergmann, "which was actually against the line of Rome, which Schönborn has lived in disobedience here," which could lead "to the blessing of remarried divorced couples."  "To that extent, this practice is now legitimized by Rome."

This also shows "that it is a very good to be a time disobedient, because one can be obtain later through praxis. This can perhaps now be extrapolated to other topics, including the blessing of homosexual couples. In this respect there is an explosive power in them." The "Vienna Praxis" would also include homosexual relationships.

Bergmann sees also in Amoris Laetitia a conscious "renunciation of power" by the Pope.  "In fact, exerts Pope Francis has engaged in a renunciation of power." This "renunciation of power" by its displacement to the local Churches must now, however, be specific and be exhausted, not only in announcements and "encouragement" but to prevent  a later reversal,  so says the Standard's manager.

Text: Martha Burger Weinzl
Image: Vatican.va/OR (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekon99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

AMDG

"Amoris Laetitia" and the Practical Consequences -- the Pastors of Biella Will Now Give Communion to Divorced and Remarried

The Pastors of Biella

(Rome) The Post-Synodal Exhortation Amoris Laetitia by Pope Francis, with its conclusions from the two Synods of Bishops 2014 and 2015 about marriage and the family, has plunged the Catholic Church plunged into a big mess and is presenting its first real impact.

The papal document led to a major disagreement in  interpretation. The Pope's closest confidants celebrate the letter as "most important document of the last 1000 years" (Cardinal Walter Kasper). The "revolutionary" implications have dawned on  progressive church circles after an initial disappointment (Alberto Melloni, School of Bologna). "Conservatives" also try desperately to explain away Amoris Laetitia,  and to reinterpret the official Magisterium of the Pope as a "personal" and therefore non-binding statement  (Cardinal Raymond Burke). Traditional Catholics who do not withdraw from the substantive debate, speak of a "catastrophic document" (Roberto de Mattei). For external observers, there reigns the perfect mess.

Rarely has the Catholic Church shown itself so fractiousness and disunited on how conceive and implement a papal document. The confusion concerns the whole Church. They range from the very top to the very bottom. How  is it now dealing with the divorced and remarried? And how with the other people who live in an irregular relationship?

The priest Don Luca Mele wrote the Pope on Twitter: "Be a little more clear: do I have to absolve them or not? Do I have to give them Communion or not? Thank you!"

The example of the Piedmontese town of Biella

The pastor of the town Biella (45,000 inhabitants) in Piedmont, which is the from which the ancestors of Pope Francis came, made it known yesterday in the local news that they are "for the admission of remarried divorcees to communion". The explosiveness lies in the subtitle of the newspaper report: "Following the publication of Amoris Laetitia by Pope Francis". In other words, the pastor of the town had previously disagreed.

The German-speaking bishops had let the world know in advance: If Rome does not guarantee thaqt public adulterers receive Communion  that they would act alone. Given the "play room" (ZDF), which the papal document leaves means that the need for  "going alone" is no longer needed. The "revolution" is that there is no general rule any more. The categorical no by the Catholic Church to communion for public adulterers has been replaced by the large numbers of "case by case" solutions. One method applied by Amoris Laetitia to the so-called "divorced and remarried", could be applied equally well in a further step, including  also homosexuals and other groups of people and situations.

The part of the Church which was "loyal to Rome" under John Paul II., which had arisen in response to the post-conciliar upheaval, is proving itself spellbound. Some have, since 2013, left off progressive solutions  under the pretext of being "loyal to Rome." The rest are staring at the pope like the rabbit at the snake.  He is supposed to increase the brothers in faith and feed the flock and protect them from the wolves. The eventuality that he could lead the Church astray himself, was categorically excluded as a possibility of thought.

Now that it is in the opinion an of attentive observer, that this part of the Church acts as if paralyzed and on many it is beginning to dawn that their conception of the papacy may need to corrected.

The Catholic Church seems thus to be facing complex new upheavals as late effects of the undigested Vatican II are to be considered and  with that, unleashed forces.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Biellanews (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekon99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches....

AMDG

Ban on Criticizing the Pope is a Structural (Conservative) Problem

Cardinal Kasper: Amoris Laetitia is "the most important document
in Church history of the last 1,000 years"

(Rome) While Cardinal Walter Kasper called Amoris laetitia "the most important document of the Church's history in the past 1000 years," his great adversary in the Synod of Bishops in 2014, "Cardinal Raymond Burke" (Sandro Magister), clings to formal restrictions.

There is no shortage of parts of the Church that match vociferously with Kasper's  assessment. This includes the daily newspaper Avvenire  of the Italian Episcopal Conference . It  is  headed by  another papal confidant, Bishop Nunzio Galatino. The daily sees Amoris Laetitia not just "according to the thinking of a wise father," but exactly how Cardinal Burke does not want to see it. Namely, a regular document of the Magisterium Amoris Laetitia which was a "revolutionary" document that sealed  "by archiving  pastoral prohibitions and constraints," and "that had turned more into a reading of the code of canon law, instead of the Gospel."

"Poor Cardinal Burke, who clings to codes and commas"

"Poor Cardinal Burke, a great canonist, who clings to nothing but codes and commas ...", said the Vatican expert Sandro Magister. "Undoubtedly," said Magister,  Pope Francis  has also thought of Burke, when he speaks of the Article 305 in Amoris Laetitia, writing of those who know "only how close their heart only with moral laws...", "as if they were boulders that were thrown on the lives of people. "

In comparison, the proponents of the "pastoral reorientation" (Cardinal Schönborn) appear to have an easy time. They offer to people supposedly what they want to hear.

Conservative prohibition of criticism  forces it to a sideshow 

Even Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, another Cardinal who had rendered outstanding services in the past two years to defend the sacrament of marriage, has so far limited his formalistic criticism of Amoris Laetitia. The content of the post-synodal letter was not the problem, but the false interpretations. In other words, what the Pope says, that it is all right, it is  just misunderstood. A reading of this pontificate, which was bumpy from the start and  easily turns into a stumbling block, just as  now.

Cardinals Burke and Brandmüller  in not criticizing the pope, are forced to resort to a sideshow and to steer clear of the actual battlefield. Criticism of Amoris Laetitia  turns out to be weak when it renounces the direct, substantive confrontation. While some are going onto the sidelines,  Cardinals like Kasper and Schönborn roll ahead at full speed on the main line and announce the exact opposite. They talk about content and refer explicitly to Pope Francis. The do not address  formal questions. 

The weakness of the cardinatial resistance is homemade in this case because the cardinals themselves are possessed of their strongest means, when they bring forth a substantive confrontation. What are they afraid of? Are they afraid of the consequences? What consequences? Is it not perhaps a lack of the insight on the part of the papacy, which proves to be the inhibition?

Approaches a substantive criticism

Both cardinals seem to be aware  of the weakness of their own reasoning. Sandro Magister points out that both Burke and Brandmüller, for example,  don't dispense  quite completely with a  substantive review.

Cardinal Brandmüller  explained  to the Bild newspaper that it was unacceptable to grant exemptions to the Communion ban for people living in the state of the public and persistent adultery. This is categorically impossible for religious reasons and also in individual cases.

Cardinal Burke sees the danger in a dangerous misconception that in Amoris Laetitia the formulation of marriage as an "ideal" may arise. "In the document, there are numerous references to the "ideal marriage." Such a description of marriage can be misleading. You can lead the reader to think that marriage is an eternal idea of what  men and women approach more or less under varying circumstances. But Christian marriage is not an ideal. It is a sacrament that gives the grace of a man and a woman to live in a true, lasting and fruitful, mutual love," said Cardinal Burke.

Rethink self-imposed ban on the Pope's criticism

The self-imposed ban against criticizing the Pope proves to the defenders of religious marriage and morality as a major weakness because it is structural. With consistent compliance, it gives the other side an almost insurmountable advantage and can be repeated as well as on other matters.

The self-limitation is  anachronistic anyway because Pope Francis had given his critic Antonio Socci a free pass  in which he explained that the criticism is legitimate and is thought to be, according to Socci, that the  criticism was "good for" the Pope. Socci had nevertheless doubted the legality of the Pope's election for half a year.

In a time in which the Pope is himself the engine of controversial breaks, faithful Catholics, particularly the so-called "conservatives" have to rethink their attitude towards the Pope. They will not fail to be bound and  soon  will not be able to check  if and how they have  been weighed down by the erroneous ballast of the papacy. And they will have to get rid of it if they want to fulfill their duty to defend the immutable doctrine.

Then to hoped that the pontificate of Francis might not be long, could yet prove to be as  double-edged as the prohibition of criticism.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: MiL (Screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches...
AMDG

Cardinal Cordes: 'Amoris Laetitia' -- There is a Risk of Abusing the Statements

Roman Curial Cardinal Cordes on "Amoris Laetitia": There arises the risk of abuse of the statements, if they do not remain anchored in word and spirit of the whole letter, but are singled out and are quoted selectively

Rome (kath.net) "The Papal Letter (Amoris Laetitia) is in the continuity of a long standing conception and teaching. It recalls the Second Vatican Council ("Gaudium et Spes"), the encyclical of Pope Paul VI."Humanae Vitae", the "theology of the body" - presented by John Paul II -., referring to the encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI "God is love" The German Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes explains this in an interview with the "Daily Mail"... Cordes sees the writing as a compendium of the Marriage and Family Pastoral which can truly give a fresh impulse.

On the question of the newspaper, whether the Pope did not go too far in two footnotes (336 and 351) relating to sections 300 and 305 of "Amoris Laetitia," the cardinal explained that with the careful reading of the document it comes to light that the pope wants to address any and all of the needs of even the most complex cases. This leads, according to Cordes, then "occasionally to very subtle arguments," such as the "conscience" or a "special situation".

The Cardinal then stated: "So the risk of misuse of his statements arise when they do not remain anchored around the letter in word and spirit -- are just singled out and quoted selectively. This is also with the reallocation of the problem to the secrecy of the confessional, can not be found as 'a loophole of mercy' -- as it was called for at the Synod of the German Bishops in Würzburg 1975."

According to Cordes, should the consideration of a particular case, according to "Amoris Laetitia"(no. 300) "this discernment can never prescind from the Gospel demands of truth and charity, as proposed by the Church". The Pope himself explicitly warned against this connection that the Church would represent a "double standard." The corresponding footnotes, says the Cardinal, must be seen "in light of theological basic orientation" such as the Council of Trent (Canon 7) or the first Post-synodal letter to the family.

"Divorced and remarried faithful 'stand in the way, in so far as allowance (i.e., the Eucharist reception), since their state of life and their living conditions are in objective contradiction to every covenant of love between Christ and the Church, which the Eucharist makes visible and present'(Familiaris consortio No. 84)." This sentence from Familiaris Consortio can not be archived. For it was John Paul II. who the Catholic Church owes for the systematic reflection on this subject. Last but not least, according to Cordes. this Pope as a saint, a witness to the truth of the highest authority.

Link to Kath.net...

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Edit: at least he's not like Father Longenecker who uses it as an opportunity to attack real Catholics who are legitimately scandalized. He actually comes to the table with a rational account.

AMDG

Amoris Laetitia Makes Bishop Fellay Want to Cry

Edit: on the blog chiesapostconcilio, they report Bishop Fellay's reaction to the Post-Synodal Exhortation during his sermon for Holy Mass on April 10th at Puy en Valay. It was first mentioned at the Italian site of the Italian district here.

"... An Apostolic Exhortation which bears the title "The joy of love," but that makes us cry. This exhortation is a summary of the two synods on marriage. It is very long and contains many things that are right, that they are beautiful, and after building a beautiful building, a beautiful boat, the Supreme Pontiff has made a hole in the keel of the boat, along the waterline. You all know what is happening. Needless to say, the hole was made by taking all possible precautions, thus it is needless to say that the hole is small: the boat sinks! Our Lord himself said that even an iota, not a single iota will be taken away by the law of God. When God speaks, his words do not admit exceptions, when God commands, he is of infinite wisdom that has provided for all possible cases. There is no exception to the law of God. And now, suddenly, it is claimed that this law of marriage, which keeps saying that "marriage is indissoluble" (the repeats this sentence, it must be said), then it says you can, despite everything, have exceptions in the sense that these so-called divorced and remarried in this state of mortal sin may be in a state of grace, and therefore could receive communion. It is very serious! Very serious! I think they do not sufficiently measure the seriousness of what has been said. Needless to say, are small exceptions put there in the corner; that's how it went to Communion in the hand and as I explained with the little hole in the vessel is appropriate, the boat sinks! "(1)